How to deal with DH response re trans issues

Sent this to my DH while I was out with Fair Play for Women yesterday.

So glad he gets it.

Sometimes I think the reason he does is because he has (decades ago) mixed with some awful, awful men. He certainly doesn’t want anyone like that near our kids.

Why does it matter so much what he thinks? It doesn't. It's not going to change anything. He has a male brain, for better or worse, and sometimes we just have to agree to disagree with dinosaurs!

My DH finally started to get it when I said that if self-ID came in he would need to accompany me to all of my smear tests in future as I wouldn’t be able to insist on a female HCP doing them. Showing him images of some of the self-identified “women” who have been allowed to compete in women’s sport also helped illustrate the reality.

attacked by a man still presenting as a man

These are people still presenting as a man, who say they are women.

Not saying any of these people are a threat, but others who are will use Self ID to access female spaces.

D Muscato took a place in a woman's refuge. And says if we don't like that, we can suck his dick.

Very pleasant and ladylike, no?

And there ain't a thing you will be able to do about it.

he says there's more chance of them getting run over by a bus or attacked by a man still presenting as a man than there is of them getting hurt by a MTF

Does he understand why you used car seats for them as littles ?

The vast majority of us survived the 70s. But low risk is only half of the equation. High stakes is the other half. Which is why we strap our kids in. Because if you gamble on low risk and are among the relatively unlucky few who lose ...you, and your child can pay a life long price, that is emotionally a lot more than the majority can afford.

That equation is why we vaccinate. Child proof our homes. Nag them about being sensible and say "would you jump off a cliff if your friends told you to ?". Don't let them walk up the slidey part of the slide etc. etc.

It doesn't stop when they aren't so tiny anymore. There is an expression over here.

Small children, small problems. Big children, big problems.

As they get older you have to up your parental game in the low risk/stupidly high stakes zone. Not just abandon your parental role in the matter cos you (erroneously) think your work is done once they are less likely to clock their head on the corner of the coffee table now they walk reliably.

Maybe I've just lived in Italy too long to be able to see it with the most appropriate cultural lens. But I do not understand men who do not want to stand shoulder to shoulder to protect the women and children they love from stupidly high stakes, once they are aware that these high stakes are becoming part of the landscape.

Especially high stakes scenarios that are screamingly obvious and are so relatively easy to avoid compared to others.

When I first talked to DP about this over a year ago he was not interested. He said "live and let live, what harm are they doing, its their life".
I left it but made my position clear.

Recently I have discussed it with him again but this time i showed him the articles and picture on social media of some of the transwomen that have committed sexual crimes or advertise their lady penis. I pointed out that while the majority of transwomen are good people the self ID will allow anyone the freedom to access female spaces including those whose pictures I had shown him.
This opened up the discussion and I went on to explain about females sports, political spaces and sex segregated services. I also pointed out that his 75 year old mother would lose her right to receive intimate care from a female.
He apologised for being dissmissive previously and admitted that as a man he could not see what was threatening or concerning as it does not affect him.

He is now an ally and has discussed this subject with his male friends. He confirms that most showed little interest and could not see the harm. However he showed them the information and pointed out the risks, potential harm and the danger to females rights which has made them review their original opinions.

He did tell me that the biggest turning point was the girl dick/lady penis mantra. Straight and gay men found this to be a ridiculous and dangerous lie.

Plus, while I voted Remain, I am not actually convinced that Brexit is a bigger threat than self-ID, although it is comparing things with quite different impacts on women.

I was really quite horrified when I read the article in the Telegraph about the legal sex trade in Germany. (Disclaimer: I know many Germans are too but it their law). It is state-supported (by being legal) exploitation and trafficking of mainly Eastern European women (since the widening of Europe). How is that an acceptable dimension of the European Union? I know that there are big sexual exploitation issues in Britain, too, but these are criminal.

XXcstastic* yes, except it is worse than that. The most violence women face statistically is from intimate partner violence, and that happens to women from all walks of life, perpetrated from all walks of life.
So one’s DD then would not have the safety of same sex rape counselling, Women’s Aid or refuge. Safety psychologically to heal but as recent cases have shown, physically as well.

How does he know his DD’s will never need those services? Sexual and intimate partner violence is not something that happens to ‘others’. It happens in one shape or form to most women.

This is like those people who, when someone posts about being against animal cruelty, they go off about how you should be worrying instead about "children in Syria". As though you can't care about both.

Ask him if he'd be happy if it were one of his daughters attacked by a man pretending to be trans in a loo.

After all, she's only one girl, right, small beer in the great scheme of things.

Someone's got to be the fall out, right?

he says there's more chance of them getting run over by a bus or attacked by a man still presenting as a man than there is of them getting hurt by a MTF

I bet he expects you to avoid buses though. right?

You can't avoid every violent male if you have nowhere to go away from them.

he says there's more chance of them getting run over by a bus or attacked by a man still presenting as a man than there is of them getting hurt by a MTF

Well that's true, of course, but it's not the point. What he doesn't get -because he is a man - is that every single time a woman is alone with a man she doesn't know/cannot trust; and every single time she is by herself, but a man might arrive; and every single time she is in public but in a situation where men be aggressive towards her, she has to be on her guard. That's dozens of times every day for most women - going out to the car in the morning if it's still dark, parking the car in a large car park, walking to the bus stop, etc, etc. It's so ingrained, we barely even notice we do it, but it's exhausting and confining. It limits our freedom in a way that 99% of men will never experience. The one thing that will make it worse is if we can no longer be confident that even the tiny number of safe, women only spaces are safe or women only. It's not MTF we fear (by and large), it's all the other men who will use self-ID to take away the tiny number of spaces that women own.

Don't try to convince him. That will happen naturally as he starts to notice the crazy. It's like when you learn a new word then you hear it everywhere.

If he is correct then over time you will sway towards his opinion.

I'd really just drop it. Men don't understand how vulnerable women are and the aggressions and microaggressions women face daily. They don't get that constant vigilance is our normal from puberty. You've given him information that will lead him to notice various sex-based rights issues and look more critically at them. Leave it there.

Point out to him the simple reality of his attitude:

He say we when he perceives a threat to himself and his family

He say don't be silly when he perceives the threat, but acknowledges it isn't a threat to himself.

He ranks you and his daughters below himself when it comes to being safe! He chooses to accept that you, as women will experience an increased threat, but that's OK, cos it is small and it won't affect him!

He isn't a feminist, he is a common or garden, every day misogynist.

I know people are saying he doesn't have to agree with you, which is generally true. But this is about something that affects you, not him. He should at least be listening to and prepared to really try and understand why you are afraid.

His point is that the proportion of crimes committed by men who self-ID as women is far smaller than those committed by men against girls/women

Self ID will allow all those men far more access and opportunity. The issue goes far beyond any crime a trans person might commit. The issue is that by removing women’s right to safe spaces etc, those predatory men get access.

Ask him how he’d feel if dds could never use a women’s loo, change room etc again but had to go in the men’s. Or if dds were put in a tent and communal showers at guides with male bodied people.

Start showing him a photo a day of a trans athlete like Laurel Hubbard, or video like the two transgirls winning in high school races, destroying the competition. This isn't a victimless thing, girls will be losing out on college scholarships because of this. 30 states in the US now allow athletes to compete in 'the gender they identify as'. How is this fair to girl athletes? What's it doing to women's sport?

Get your DH a subscription to The Times, maybe? I've not had to raise the issue with my DH at all. He told me about the smear of GC female academics covered in the Times this morning before I'd read it.

The problem with the niche opinion that the word "woman" is a social definition and can be claimed by whoever wants it is that this is not the dictionary definition and it's not a definition agreed by most of our society.

Almost all people agree that woman = adult human female.

To say "women" means something else or adult human female + male person identifying as one is not agreed upon so is not a definition. It's just not a truth.

A male person identifying as female is a transwoman. They already have this definition for themselves.

These people can't both be women and transwomen because the two describe very different things.

But wrt your post op I'd give it time. Most people reach peak trans eventually.

Some great advice here.

If women is a social term and a biological term then we need to be crystal clear in legislation.

Half this problem would go away if transwomen would 1. Define their friggin terms, clearly, succinctly and non-circular - gender for a start! and 2. Allowed the 'biological woman' meaning group to keep its own term to describe and protect our biologically relevant reality.

Also, as a parent of daughters, what does he think of the absolutely massive spike in teen girls presenting with rogd?

My dh is onside in the sense that he thinks twaw is a crock if shite, and that these bourgeois twats wouldn't last a minute amongst his blue collar colleagues. But he does think it's a red herring issue, that it will fade and die without much consequence, and that "you can't build a revolution based on trans"
It is quite frustrating...

Take your OH to twitter and show him the #transgirl and #girlslikeus hashtags and watch him

I’m a feminist with a different view..

😂 You love the menz and their feelz.

OP - It doesn't sound like your DH is taking in the bigger picture. Sure, the chances of being followed into a toilet for criminal purposes is low, women and girls (children?) are statistically at far greater risk from family members and close friends as well a myriad of other examples that I'm sure others can think of.

However, self ID and the impact of it are just another part of the wider issues of eroding of womens rights, and the exertion of patriarchal power. The knock on effects, not just the toilet example, as illustrated by other posters will be wide and affect healthcare, social security, sports etc. The list is potentially very long. He needs to appreciate the implications before it will sink in. Unfortunately, as a man he is unlikley to be able to appreciate this because he will never be a potential victim.

I agree Sophocles

The views expressed on this board about TWANW and about female penises etc. are not minority views. I am curious as to whether the people claiming that such views are 'niche' really believe this or whether it is a tactic.

I think the views expressed on this board about misogyny/ hatred of women motivating many trans-supporters are probably the only ones that are specific/ niche to posters on this board.

I've met three transing teens (female to male) in the last two years. All have childhood diagnosis of ASD, MH, and emotional behavioural difficulties. All were aggressive, highly emotional and confused. They were on hormones/meds or about to be put on them. They were uninformed of the side affects of the drugs they were taking. A few years ago they would have been coming out as lesbian, not thinking they should take hormones and have surgery to try and 'change' somehow. It's scary.